Category Archives: Miscellaneous

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Zombie

Feel like zombie. Need sleep. So tired.

Finished taxes tonight… err.. this morning.

I get to pay again this year. Though not as bad as last year. About half the amount from last year. Really need to get my withholding adjusted at work so it’s not as bad next time.

Between car and taxes I’ve had to dip a bit into my savings, though. I’m worried about the trip to Australia at the end of the year, but I think I’ll be back on track in just a couple months. I have until July really. If I don’t have the money to get my airfare by then I’m in trouble.

I’m afraid I’ll be pretty worthless at work today too. Though they’re generally pretty understanding about tax season.

Need brains…

Braaaaaaiiiins.

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Shiny.

It’s official. There’s a 2006 Hyundai Elantra sitting out in the driveway right at this moment.

I don’t think it’s completely sunk in.

I love the car, though. It is an absolute blast to drive. I had forgotten just how fun it was to drive a stick shift, as it’s been years since I had the opportunity. I’ve only managed to kill the engine twice, as it’s taken a bit of an adjustment period. It’s certainly a lot more sensitive than my old beat-up Toyota pickup used to be. The Elantra is almost sporty. The steering is good… not sports car quality, but solid. And it’s quiet. And fuel efficient.

In short, it will be an excellent car for the next couple of years.

My hope is that I can baby the hell out of it for the next 24 months and then see where opportunity takes me. I’m even going to do all the maintenance myself if possible. It’s time I faced down the jabs of my gear-head brothers.

I just find it surreal that I’ve doubled the odomoter on the vehicle in one day.

I also feel like my arm should be sore from all the signature signing I did today. Over a dozen different documents needed my elligible scrawl of a signature on them, and after you sign that many documents (sometimes more than once), you start to wonder if you’re missing something, even if you read all the small print. Honestly, though… working with the Hyundai dealership was one of the more pleasant experiences I’ve ever had. The staff was friendly, answered all my questions, went out of their way to find me what I wanted, and even worked to get me the best deal possible. They were able to beat the percentage rate I had on my pre-approved loan, gave a hefty cash back discount on the new vehicle purchase, and didn’t force me into things like unnecessary accessories or extended warranties. The one thing I did cave on was gap insurance, which, in my case, was something I seriously needed to get anyway. I was able to negotiate with them on it though… and after protesting that I didn’t want it a couple times, they came back with a lower rate that fit into my monthly payments beautifully. The only other issue I had was that they tried to get me to finance for 72 months instead of 60, though that was easily solved.

So, all in all, I’d have to heartily recommend Hyundai. Good service, fun cars, and an excellent warranty.

Of course, we’ll see if my tune changes the moment I have an actual problem with the vehicle.

As for the holiday… Easter is tax day for me. And, hopefully, a little bit of World of Warcraft.

I miss my kender.

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Vroom.

I bought a new car today.

This morning I drove into Yakima (about 85 miles away) and test drove a Hyundai Elantra. And I liked it. It’s not a huge car. Definitely smaller than the Dodge Intrepid I used to drive. Though honestly, the Intrepid was almost too big. It was certainly a challenge getting around and parking it in San Francisco when I drove it down there a couple years ago. I don’t see having that problem with the Elantra. But it’s still big enough where I don’t feel completely uncomfortable driving it.

And it gets decent gas mileage, with 34 mpg (14.5 kpl) highway driving.

Honestly, I think it was the easiest sale the sales rep has had for a while. He didn’t have to talk me into it. I’d already done my homework. Consumer Reports has been my haunting ground for the past few days, and I knew the Elantra has an excellent track record. Maybe not as good as its competitors like the Toyota Corolla (warning: really bad background music. I mean… really bad) or the Honda Civic, but it handily beat them price wise.

So I’m pretty happy about the whole situation all told.

I don’t have the car yet. I was pretty specific in what I wanted, so they have to ship one up from a dealership in Oregon. For some reason, manual drive hatchbacks just aren’t that popular. Though I did give on the colour. I wanted black originally, but settled for red. Though honestly, it’s a rather pretty shade of red.

It will be in Yakima on Saturday.

I’m pretty excited. It’ll be nice to have my own wheels again. And moving into a new car eases my mind incredibly. 5 years full bumper to bumper warranty with roadside assistance. And 10 year coverage on the powertrain. It’s almost Adam proof. I sometimes wonder what I’m doing in a family of gear heads, but I figure this is something I shouldn’t be able to mess up.

So one bit of stress is mostly taken care of at this point.

Now I just need to get my taxes done.

*shudders*

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Spring Break

Things have been in a bit of turmoil the past few days.

Shawn’s little car, which I had hoped would last at least another month, has decided to become very ill. We still don’t know exactly what’s wrong with it at this point, but at the moment it has the terrifying characteristic of feeling like it’s going to tear itself apart if you get it much above 50 mph. So it’s not exactly comforting to drive. And if there was an automotive equivalent to laryngitis, this car would sound like it had it.

This has, of course, put me in a bit of a position, since I require vehicular transportation to get to work, 30 miles away.

Luckily I’ve been able to secure some financing for a vehicle, and though I’m not completely happy with the terms, it’s the only avenue I have available at the moment. The financing does dictate that I have to get a newer vehicle, which I wasn’t intending to do, as I just wanted something simple that I could commute with, but I have to admit the thought of a newer vehicle which I won’t have to worry about as much is nice. And, looking over my budget, it should fit into the big financial picture without any issues.

All I need now is for the financial packet to arrive in the mail, and to start shopping for a vehicle. Unfortunately, I’ll have to do my shopping over the phone for the most part, though it helps that I know what I want. I’m looking for a Nissan Altima, or possibly a Maxima. I’ve always liked the Nissan vehicles, and Altima and Maxima have an excellent record. Plus they make excellent commuter vehicles, with low gas consumption and a rock solid service record. I had thought about looking into a Toyota Prius, the hybrid vehicle which has been hyped quite a bit recently, but the prices for one are extravagantly high here. I’m not entirely sure why this is, especially after talking to my overseas friend and confidant. The conspiracist part of my brain says that it’s probably due to some sort of price locking by the oil companies. The rational part says that its simply what the market here will bear. At any rate, they are simply out of my budget.

That pretty much covers my car woes for now. This next week is going to be… interesting. I have to find some way to get to work without a vehicle, and shop for a car at the same time. I’m lucky that this week was actually spring break, so it wasn’t necessary to go in to work for most of the week. Shawn and I will be borrowing a car for tomorrow so that we can at least get a day in. Then next week… I’m not sure yet what will happen.

It gives me something to stress about for the weekend, at least.

In happier news, this week has given me the opportunity to catch up on a few movies.

First up, I watched Gattaca. This is one of those movies I’ve been meaning to watch for some time, and has been popping up repeatedly on my recommend list in places like Amazon and Netflix. So I took the plunge and finally rented it. And was quite pleased by what I saw. Now, I’m not a big fan of Ethan Hawke. For some reason, he just grates me the wrong way. But I was able to tolerate his acting as the lead in this film. I think it helps that the story was something I find incredibly intriguing, and was presented in a very compelling way. Jude Law’s character was also fascinating, and he truly does steal the scene when he’s given the chance to act. This is very well done science fiction, set in the not too distant future. It’s also good to say that I’ve finally found a movie that doesn’t completely genuflect at the audience at the end. The characters stay true to their convictions. And that’s something.

Next up, I watched Cronos, the first movie directed by Guillermo del Toro. I have to say up front that I absolutely love The Devil’s Backbone. Enough that it would possibly be in my top ten most liked movies of all time. Cronos isn’t quite in the ranks of Devil’s Backbone, but it was thoroughly entertaining, and a recommended watch if you like del Toro’s work. It’s a well thought out, sometimes touching, vampire piece. The movie is a little slow in places, and has a few things that don’t completely make sense if you start picking it apart, but is balanced quite well by some fantastic imagery and a cast of characters that you actually grow quite fond of as the movie progresses. And it has Ron Perlman. Definitely worth a rental, though I don’t think I’ll be adding it to my DVD collection.

And finally, I watched Lord of War, an entertaining commentary on guns and the people that sell them. I actually wasn’t expecting much from this movie, as I’d heard mixed things about it… and you generally never know what you’re getting into with something as volatile a subject as gun running to countries in a state of unrest. The story is told very much from the point of view of a gun salesman, though. And Nicholas Cage actually plays the part quite well. To him, it’s not about what the guns are being used for. It’s not his war, or his fight, or his concern. This brings up a lot of moral conflicts in the film, some of which are presented better than others. But it does point out that even if one gun runner is stopped or put away, it wouldn’t stop the killing, as there are plenty of others out there that would take his place. You could say that the movie advocates gun control in a way, but leaves a lot of the interpretation to the viewer. I was a bit dissatisfied with the ending, though that might possibly be because its likely how it would of ended realistically. This is more of a scathing commentary on American government than anything else in this film. I’d say this is another movie that I think is worth a rental, and is actually more likely to be added to my DVD collection than Cronos. It is controversial however, so don’t expect to always enjoy or agree with the views presented. Oh… and Ethan Hawke is in it. And I did find his morally heavy-handed character as annoying as usual.

So… three movies… and all three of them I’d recommend for at least a single watch through.

I guess I could say this was the spring break of cars, stress, and movies. I’ve also started reading Enchanter, the second book of the Wayfarer Redemption series by Sara Douglas. I can tell that I’ll be spending some quality time with it over the weekend.

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Creative vocabulary.

Driving into work today, Shawn had one of his creative moments. He has a strange knack for creating new words, and I’ve decided to post them here for all the world to enjoy.

So, without further adieu, here is Shawn’s word of the day.

poofer spoot (pū'fər spūt) n.

Definition: Not entirely sure. I think he was refering to a dangly bit of hose hanging from a piece of farm equipment we were driving behind. Like all Shawnisms, this is free for adaptation. For example, it could refer to a strange dance, i.e. “I’m so happy, I just want to get up and poofer spoot!”

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Musings

It’s been a pleasant past couple of days.

The weekend was spent mostly wasting time on World of Warcraft. And quite happily, I might add. It’s incredibly fun to play through again from a fresh perspective, with new players and playing a different class. I’m having a blast leveling up my rogue at the moment, and from what I can tell, those I played with had a rather enjoyable time as well.

Somehow I have the feeling that World of Warcraft may take up a chunk of my weekend once and awhile. Not every weekend, I hope… as I know there are things I still want to do… but it’s good to just lose yourself in something simple and enjoyable once and awhile.

Especially when you can do it with friends.

Work bits were mostly back to normal today. I’ve been able to tinker more with Cisco equipment, and was able to setup a video conferencing unit as well. Which can be a little tricky to do considering the levels of security and firewall protection that are in place. I also broke down and ordered a couple of new CD’s today. I had been poking around on iTunes and was having a bit of fun putting in known artists I enjoy and seeing what else people had purchased that was similar. I still have a hard time buying songs directly from iTunes, though. I’m a bit of an audiophile, and the 128Kbps just doesn’t cut it for me quality wise. Plus I’m a little old fashioned in that I like to have that physical disc with the liner notes and inserts.

At any rate, the CD’s I ended up buying were Ladytron’s Witching Hour, Imogen Heap’s Speak For Yourself, and Depeche Mode’s Exciter. The first two are newly discovered artists, which I hope to post reviews of at some point. The Depeche Mode, though, is to fill in one more album gap in my collection. I don’t aspire to track down everything they’ve ever done, because I think that would be a lesson in futility in ways… but I certainly don’t mind picking up an album here or there.

Otherwise, things are fairly quiet. Shawn’s girlfriend is on spring break, so I expect to see her a little more often this week, which is good. Shawn has officially declared that he’s going to take a bit of a break from work this week, for somewhat obvious reasons. We watched My Neighbor Totoro tonight, which Danie hadn’t seen. It’s definitely a kid’s movie, but it’s still amusing nonetheless.

And, one of the happiest bit of news, I finally got part of the long overdue overseas package off today. There was just way too much procrastination on my part, and it was starting to make me a little upset at myself. I feel better knowing that a large chunk of the stuff I’ve been wanting to send is finally on its way… and hope to still be able to put together a few care packages here and there in the months to come. Hopefully with more maple and cinnamon goodness.

And Cthulhu? He’s just happy to be on his way.

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Small Things

The amount of time I can spend on small things still staggers my mind.

I’ve been fiddling tonight with progress bars. My hope was that I could add a progress bar to the books I’m currently reading to show how far along with them I am. I found a simple plugin that would let me manage projects and display progress bars for them, but tying it into the “Now Reading” plugin has been a lesson in futility. I’ve come to the conclusion that I’ll probably have to recode the plugin by hand to get it to do what I want it to. Which is beyond the scope of what I want to accomplish tonight. So instead, at the end of this post, is a progress meter for The Wayfarer Redemption, which I’ve spent some quality time with tonight.

Quite happily, I might add. Things in this book are very much starting to pick up. And I get the feeling I’ll be hard pressed to put it down in the nights to come.

This is that happy state of book-induced insomnia that I love. And dread in the morning.

And, for one of you faithful that I know reads this blog, I’ve installed the progress bars plugin in your blog for you to play with. It may be just what you’re looking for for your cross-stitching bits.

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Something

A week since my last post…

Needless to say, I haven’t done as good as I had hoped I would.

This week has been a rough one, to be honest. Things at work have actually picked up a bit. I was hoping it would be fairly quiet until the end of the year, as it has a tendency of being this time of year, but a few major software updates made things a little shaky for a while. Plus I found out earlier in the week that a couple high school students wanted to job shadow me, of all people, for their senior projects.

I find it amusing that there are kids in high school eager to join the IT market that don’t have the faintest idea of how the guts of a computer or a network work. I can’t blame them completely. There’s not really a curriculum here that covers something like that. The vast majority of computer oriented classes at the school I work at consist of how to touch type and use Word and Excel. Which are excellent skills to have, to be sure. It’s just pretty far from things like actually building your own computer, for example. Or putting together a simple network.

I guess that’s why they have job shadows.

Although the blank stares I got while describing what I was doing as I added a VLAN to the network for use with our DMZ was entertaining.

All this has meant, though, that I have been having a hard time finding moments to dedicate to my goals.

And I’m upset at myself because of that.

Thankfully I was able to get a little bit on track last night, though it meant that I didn’t have the time really to post things here. So this a little later than I wanted it to be, but the good news is that I’ve actually made some progress… and spent some time away from work.

Shawn, Danie and I spent most of the day yesterday in Moses Lake. Just having fun for the most part. We were able to have a nice dinner at a favorite mexican restaurant in town, and fit in a little bit of shopping as well.

And me, being the impulse purchaser I am, managed to snag up a movie I’ve been looking forward to tremendously.

So, needless to say, we watched a movie when we got home.

Howl’s Moving Castle is another gorgeous work of art from Hayao Miyazaki. I am slowly beginning to collect all his pieces, including Nausicaa of the Valley of the Winds, Spirited Away, and Princess Mononoke. Howl’s Moving Castle is actually more straightforward than most of his others works, with a storyline that is fairly simple, and familiar in some ways, echoing a lot of fantasy tales. It is, however, still stunningly animated and an absolute joy to watch. I’ve found out the story is actually based on a book, which I may have to track down and read. If I ever get around to doing so, I’ll have to compare and contrast the two here. This is something I would actually like to do more often when watching movies, as most of them actually are based on some literary piece of some sort. I know that when I watched the first Narnia movie, the desire was quite strong to go reread the books… and see if somehow my childhood memories of them where somehow rose tinted compared to my mixed reactions of the movie.

At any rate, so far its been a rather pleasant weekend. I’ve even managed to get a couple more chapters into The Wayfarer Redemption, and it is still my solemn goal to get the rest of the way through it before the end of the month. Which I think is still entirely possible at this point.

I do have to admit another addiction that has been stealing away some of my time once more as well, though. World of Warcraft. I’ve tried to hide this addiction for the longest time… because there was a time when it was actually a serious problem for me. Though not lately, thankfully. When I was inbetween jobs and wasn’t sure if I was going to have full time work at Royal, you could almost gaurentee that I was playing that evil game. That was a dark time for me… where I didn’t know where my life was going or how I was going to make ends meet. That game was an escape… and much worse, in ways, than drinking. I’m not saying it’s evil incarnate, because honestly, I had an absolute blast playing for the most part. Blizzard has done something amazing in building a game in the massively multiplayer genre that is genuinely fun to play. They make it easy to get started, make questing easy to do, and weave in a storyline that is actually quite intriguing. There are still some balance issues between classes, but considering the choices you have and their very differing skillset, I think there are some things that can be forgiven. That being said, I reached a point playing where I lost a lot of interest in the game. And, thank god, I was able to start working full time in Royal, which simply made it so I couldn’t put in the amount of time required for one of the most frustrating aspects of the game.

The end game content.

Unless you have absolutely no life and all the free time in the world, World of Warcraft becomes virtually unplayabe at level 60. At that point it stops becoming a matter of questing or simple runs through dungeons with a small group of friends. At level 60 you have to start running instances that require raids of 40 people… with the hope that something for you drops that you can use… and that you don’t get out-rolled or out-bid on the item by one of the others in your class that is going to invariably be there. These raids generally will take multiple days to complete… and will require being in a guild that takes such things seriously. And will likely kick you if you don’t have the time to seriously take part.

This is where it all falls apart, and, in my opinion, the game stops being fun.

I hold out hope that the expansion pack will solve some of these problems, but honestly I doubt it will. At least until you hit the level cap at 70 once again. But I have found myself playing the game once again despite these drawbacks. Because, honestly, though reaching level 60 might be rather anticlimatic, getting there is still an absolute blast. I’ve been leveling up a character with my little brother once more, and having a fun time doing it. Partly because I’m playing an Alliance character for the first time, but also because we are playing on a PvP server, which is a different experience entirely. It adds a level of apprehension to the game that constantly keeps you on your toes while you’re playing. And, of course, there is something satisfying about randomly battling the other faction and, hopefully, coming out victorious.

Add to that the fact that two other good friends have started a character on another server, and I find myself once more happily trying to level and quest to catch up to them.

The game may have its faults… but its still well worth a play through in my opinion. And maybe some day they’ll fix those end game issues.

Until then, I’m not too worried about it sucking my life away again, at least.

There are too many books that need to be read instead.

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No more excuses.

I’m realizing, for the most part, that I find myself intensely boring.

I think I have that ‘nothing ever happens’ syndrome, where I’ve convinced myself that the progress of time is just one of those inexplicable things that you have no control over.

For so long, I’ve been letting things happen to me, instead of making things happen.

I am, in short, lazy.

I can’t really think of anything profound that has happened these last couple of days. I go to work, fix computers, come home, spend some time online… surfing sites, tempting myself with retail therapy, catching up with close friends… and then I sleep.

Wash, rinse, repeat.

I think, in large part, it’s part of the reason I started the list of things I want to do. To give me incentive to go out there and actually pursue some goals.

To make things happen, instead of wait for them.

So… I’ve decided to pick five things I want to work on this month. And I have to spend at least an hour working on them every day, with a progress report of how I’m doing at least every other day.

  1. Complete my author / book list. I have this done partially already… I’ve been accumulating the names of series and authors I’ve wanted to read for a while now. It’s time to put it in a readable list, though. On this site, in the projects area.
  2. Finish The Wayfarer Redemption and start a new book.
  3. Begin my dream journal. This is spurred on in part by the fact that I know I had a strange dream this morning. But already I can’t remember a thing about it.
  4. Make some progress on my French studies. I was doing good on this for a little while, but have let it slip to the wayside of late. I’m hoping that this site can be something that helps me in this regard. With every update to blog, I want to post a little something about what I’m learning. Even if it’s just a simple word or phrase. I expect this to be the hardest thing to keep doing. Learning a language isn’t an easy task, especially if you’re trying to teach yourself. It’s going to take a bit of determination and willpower on my part.
  5. Organize my work-out schedule, and stick to it. I’ve been trying to keep on a schedule of working out on my recent exercise equipment purchase, but this, too, has fallen to the wayside of the late. There’s no excuse really, other than that whole laziness thing. My goal is to work out a solid schedule, including what exercises I’ll be doing, how I’ll rotate in aerobic exercise (which I’m happier about doing now that it’s warming up a bit), and most of all, stick to it. This will all, of course, get posted here.

And that, honestly, should keep my hands full. I have a hard time with forming new habits. I know I need to step up to the plate, but all too often I just find myself falling down.

But honestly, I just need to stop making excuses for myself.

This blog helps, actually. It reminds me of how flimsy those excuses really are when there’s just a little bit of light shed on them. It would be all too easy just to crawl back into my hole if I didn’t make myself come out once and a while. It’s bad enough that there has been so long of a gap in my updates.

We’ll be close friends by the time this month is over, blog.

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The Beginning

It seems like so long since I’ve done something like this.

I’ve sliced a little piece out of the Internet pie and made it mine. This is my new home, my safe haven… a place where, hopefully, I can be myself.

It’s not much to begin with, of course… but that will change with each coming week. My main hope for this site is to help me find myself again. I’ve felt lost… for a long time now. For the longest time I feel like I’ve been running from myself. With a little luck, and a nudge from this blog, I can work on discovering all those small things that I always found beautiful.

I’ve also decided to start a 1001 Day Project on the advice of a very dear friend. You can find mine here. It’s actually something I’ve been working on since the beginning of the year. When I got home from a recent trip to Canada, I started jotting down a lot of the things I’ve been talking about doing, but haven’t gotten around to. When Vicky sent me the link to the meme, I knew it was exactly what I needed. So here I am… with 100 items left to go and 1000 days left to do them. And for the first time in a long time, I’m really excited about the prospect.

So thank you, Vicky. It’s no surprise you’re the focus of a few of those items.